Sea Swept (30 page)

D
RAWING WASN’T ETHAN’S strong point. With the other boats he’d built, he’d worked off very rough sketches and detailed measurements. For the first boat for this client, he’d fashioned a lofting platform and had found working from it was easier and more precise.

The skiff he’d built and sold had been a basic model, with a few tweaks of his own added. He’d been able to see the completed project in his mind easily enough and had no trouble envisioning side or interior views.

But he understood that the beginnings of a business required all the forms Phillip had told him to sign and needed something more formal, more professional. They would want to develop a reputation for skill and quality quickly if they expected to stay afloat.

So he’d spent countless hours in the evenings at his desk struggling over the blueprints and drawings of their first job.

When he unrolled his completed sketches on the kitchen table, he was both pleased and proud of his work. “This,” he said, holding down the top corners, “is what I had in mind.”

Cam looked over Ethan’s shoulder, sipped the beer he’d just opened, grunted. “I guess that’s supposed to be a boat.”

Insulted but not particularly surprised by the comment, Ethan scowled. “I’d like to see you do better, Rembrandt.”

Cam shrugged, sat. Upon closer, more neutral study, he admitted he couldn’t. But that didn’t make the drawing of the sloop look any more like a boat. “I guess it doesn’t matter much, as long as we don’t show your art project to the client.” He pushed the sketch aside and got down to the blueprints. Here, Ethan’s thoughtful precision and patience showed through. “Okay, now we’re talking. You want to go with smooth-lap construction.”

“It’s expensive,” Ethan began, “but it’s got advantages. He’ll have a strong, fast boat when we’re finished.”

“I’ve been in on a few,” Cam murmured. “You’ve got to be good at it.”

“We’ll be good at it.”

Cam had to grin. “Yeah.”

“The thing is . . .” As a matter of pride, Ethan nudged the sketch of the completed boat back over. “It takes skill and precision to smooth-lap a boat. Anybody who knows boats recognizes that. This guy, he’s a Sunday sailor, doesn’t know more than basic port and starboard—he’s just got money. But he hangs with people who know boats.”

“And so we use him to build a rep,” Cam finished. “Good thinking.” He studied the figures, the drawings, the views. It would be a honey, he mused. All they had to do was build it. “We could build a lift model.”

“We could.”

Building a lift model was an old and respected stage of boat building. Boards of equal thickness would be pegged together and shaped to the desired hull form. Then the model could be taken apart so that the shape of the mold frames could be determined. Then the builders would trace
the shape of the planks, or lifts, in their proper relation to one another.

“We could start the lofting,” Cam mused.

“I figured we could start work on that tonight and continue tomorrow.”

That meant drawing the full-sized shape of the hull on a platform in the shop. It would be detailed, showing the mold sections—and those sections would be tested by drawing in the longitudinal curves, waterlines.

“Yeah, why wait?” Cam glanced up as Seth wandered in to raid the refrigerator. “Though it would be better if we had somebody who could draw worth diddly,” he said casually and pretended not to notice Seth’s sudden interest.

“As long as we have the measurements, and the work’s first class, it doesn’t matter.” Defending his work, Ethan smoothed a hand over his rendition of the boat.

“Just be nicer if we could show the client something jazzy.” Cam lifted a shoulder. “Phillip would call it marketing.”

“I don’t care what Phillip would call it.” The stubborn line began to form between Ethan’s eyebrows, a sure sign that he was about to dig in his heels. “The client’s satisfied with my other work, and he’s not going to be critiquing a drawing. He wants a damn boat, not a picture for his wall.”

“I was just thinking. . .” Cam let it hang as Ethan, obviously irritated, rose to get his own beer. “Lots of times in the boatyards I’ve known, people come around, hang out. They like to watch boats being built—especially the people who don’t know squat about boat building but think they do. You could pick up customers that way.”

“So?” Ethan popped the top and drank. “I don’t care if people want to watch us rabbeting laps.” He did, of course, but he didn’t expect it would come to that.

“It’d be interesting, I was thinking, if we had good framed sketches on the walls. Boats we’ve built.”

“We haven’t built any damn boats yet.”

“Your skipjack,” Cam pointed out. “The workboat.
The one you already did for our first client. And I put in a lot of time on a two-masted schooner up in Maine a few years ago, and a snazzy little skiff in Bristol.”

Ethan sipped again, considering. “Maybe it would look good, but I’m not voting to hire some artist to paint pictures. We’ve got an equipment list to work out, and Phil’s got to finish fiddling with the contract for
this
boat.”

“Just a thought.” Cam turned. Seth was still standing in front of the wide-open refrigerator. “Want a menu, kid?”

Seth jolted, then grabbed the first thing that came to hand. The carton of blueberry yogurt wasn’t what he’d had in mind for a snack, but he was too embarrassed to put it back. Stuck with what he considered Phillip’s health crap, he got out a spoon.

“I got stuff to do,” he muttered and hurried out.

“Ten bucks says he feeds that to the dog,” Cam said lightly and wondered how long it would take Seth to start drawing boats.

H
E HAD A detailed and somewhat romantic sketch of Ethan’s skipjack done by morning. He didn’t need Phillip’s presence in the kitchen to remind him it was Friday. The day before freedom. Ethan was already gone, sailing out to check crab pots and rebait. Though Seth had tried to plot how to catch all three of them together, he simply hadn’t been able to figure out how to delay Ethan’s dawn departure. But two out of three, he thought as he passed the table where Cam was brooding silently over his morning coffee, wasn’t bad.

It took at least two cups of coffee before any man in the Quinn household communicated with more than grunts. Seth was already used to that, so he said nothing as he set down his backpack. He had his sketchbook, with his finger wedged between the pages. He dropped it on the table as if it didn’t matter to him in the least, then, with his heart
skipping, rummaged through the cupboards for cereal.

Cam saw the sketch immediately. Smiling into his coffee, he said nothing. He was considering the toast he’d managed to burn when Seth came to the table with a box and a bowl. “That damn toaster’s defective.”

“You turned it up to high again,” Phillip told him and finished beating his egg-white-and-chive omelette.

“I don’t think so. How many eggs are you scrambling there?”

“I’m not scrambling any.” Phillip slid the eggs into the omelette pan he’d brought from his own kitchen. “Make your own.”

Jeez, was the guy blind or what? Seth wondered. He poured milk on his cereal and gently nudged the sketchbook an inch closer to Cam.

“It wouldn’t kill you to add a couple more while you’re doing it.” Cam broke off a piece of the charcoaled toast. He had almost learned to like it that way. “I made the coffee.”

“The sludge,” Phillip corrected. “Let’s not get delusions of grandeur.”

Cam sighed lustily, then rose to get a bowl. He picked up the cereal box that sat beside Seth’s open sketchbook. He could all but hear the boy grind his teeth as he sat back down and poured. “Probably going to have company this weekend.”

Phillip concentrated on browning the omelette to perfection. “Who?”

“Anna.” Cam slopped milk into his bowl. “I’m going to take her sailing, and I think I’ve got her talked into cooking dinner.”

All the guy could think about was girls and filling his gut, Seth decided in disgust. He used his elbow to shove the sketch pad closer. Cam never glanced up from his cereal bowl.

When he saw Phillip slide the omelette from pan to plate, he judged it time to make his move. Seth’s face was a study in agonized fury. “What’s this?” Cam said
absently, cocking his head to view the sketch that was by now all but under his nose.

Seth nearly rolled his eyes. It was about damn time. “Nothing,” he muttered, and gleefully kept eating.

“Looks like Ethan’s boat.” Cam picked up his coffee, glanced at Phillip. “Doesn’t it?”

Phillip stood, sampling the first bite of his breakfast, approving it. “Yeah. It’s a good drawing.” Curious, he looked at Seth. “You do it?”

“I was just fooling around.” The flush of pride was creeping up his neck and leaving his stomach jittery.

“I work with guys who can’t draw this well.” Phillip gave Seth an absent pat on the shoulder. “Nice work.”

“No big deal,” Seth said with a shrug as the thrill burst through him.

“Funny, Ethan and I were just talking about using sketches of boats in the boatyard. You know, Phil, like advertising our work.”

Phillip settled down to his eggs, but lifted a brow in both surprise and approval. “You thought of that? Color me amazed. Good idea.” He studied the sketch more closely as he worked it through. “Frame it rough, keep the edges of the sketch raw. It should look working-man, not fancy.”

Cam made a sound in his throat, as if he were mulling it over. “One sketch won’t make much of a statement.” He frowned at Seth. “I guess you couldn’t do a few more, like of Ethan’s workboat? Or if I got some pictures of a couple of the boats I’ve worked on?”

“I dunno.” Seth fought to keep the excitement out of his voice. He nearly succeeded in keeping his eyes bored when they met Cam’s, but little lights of pleasure danced in them. “Maybe.”

It didn’t take Phillip long to clue in. Catching the drift, he reached for his coffee and nodded. “Could make a nice statement. Clients who came in would see different boats we’ve done. It’d be good to have a drawing of the one you’re starting on.”

Cam snorted. “Ethan’s got a pathetic sketch. Looks like a kindergarten project. Don’t know what can be done about it.” Then he looked at Seth, narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you can take a look at it.”

Seth felt laughter bubble up in his throat and gamely swallowed it. “I suppose.”

“Great. You got about ninety seconds to make the bus, kid, or you’re walking to school.”

“Shit.” Seth scrambled up, grabbed his backpack, and took off in a flurry of pounding sneakers.

When the front door slammed, Phillip sat back. “Nice work, Cam.”

“I have my moments.”

“Every now and again. How’d you know the kid could draw?”

“He gave Anna a picture he’d done of the pup.”

“Hmm. So what’s the deal with her?”

“Deal?” Cam went back to his pitiful toast and tried not to envy Phillip his eggs.

“Spending the weekend, sailing, cooking dinner. Haven’t seen you sniffing around any other woman since she came on the scene.” Phillip grinned into his coffee. “Sounds serious. Almost . . . domestic.”

“Get a grip.” Cam’s stomach took an uncomfortable little lurch. “We’re just enjoying each other.”

“I don’t know. She looks like the picket-fence type to me.”

Cam snorted. “Career woman. She’s smart, she’s ambitious, and she’s not looking for complications.” She wanted a house in the country, Cam remembered, near the water, with a yard where she could plant flowers.

“Women always look for complications,” Phillip said positively. “Better watch your step.”

“I know where I’m going, and how to get there.”

“That’s what they all say.”

• • •

A
NNA WAS DOING her best not to look for, or find, complications. It was one of the reasons she’d decided against seeing Cameron on Friday night. She made work her excuse and compromised by telling him she’d be at his house bright and early Saturday morning for a sail. When he wheedled, she weakened and promised to make lasagna.

The part of her that gained so much pleasure from watching others eat what she’d prepared herself came from her grandmother. Anna believed that was something to be proud of.

Though she didn’t commit to spending the night, they both realized it was understood.

She took the evening for herself, changing out of her suit and into baggy sweats. She put some of her favorite music on, nestling Billie Holiday between Verdi and Cream. She poured a glass of good red wine and watched the sun set.

It was time, she knew, long past time, to do some clear thinking, some objective analyzing. She’d known Cameron Quinn only a matter of weeks, yet she’d allowed herself to become more involved with him than with any other man who’d touched her life.

This level of involvement hadn’t been in her plans. She usually planned so well. Steps she took, both professionally and personally, were always carefully thought out. She knew that was a protective action, one she had decided upon coolly and at an early age. If she thought about where each step was leading or could lead, held back on impulse, and depended on intellect, it was much harder to make a mistake.